2007 Operating Schedule Released

MDOmnis said:

I guess it just feels to me that CP is trying too hard to cut costs and not hard enough to find new streams of revenue - like night life or debit on the season passes and resort cards or more amenities at the resorts, etc. They need to stop nipping away at their product and look at improving it and offering new interesting products.

My original post is lost in cyberspace, so if two show up, oh well, this will be shorter.

I feel that Matt makes a good point. How long did CP kick around Halloweekends before they went with it? When did the park close for the season before this? Didn't the park close after Labor Day pre-halloweekends? How much has Halloweekends really improved on things? Have there been any new ideas that would be a big draw, outside of the usual ride additions and other improvements that CP has tried? Just curious what would be a new direction. More attractions within the same season or should they have an easterfest, spring fling, turkeyfest or winterfest and hope it takes off (I know, CF eliminated this at PKI)?

I'm just curious, I never worked at CP so I don't know how or what it takes to venture into new products, but I'm sure they are happy with the halloweekends direction. Maybe they'll like what you came up with and try it! :)

CP4eva'04 said:
Now that Michigan goes too school later why not keep the normal operating schedule till labor day. Closing at 8 just doesn't make sense from what I saw in August.

I don't really know the answer but it may be the fact that a lot of school districts in Ohio are returning in the 3rd week of August to accomodate the state mandated testing requirements. My kids' schedules changed this past summer for that reason and started on the 22nd, which corresponds with the shorter days. I think the early return sucks and wish they were off from Memorial Day to Labor Day, summer with my kids goes way too quick! I'm sure the tourism industry would cheer if this were the case! :)

I went to the park this year about 4 times during May week days for the very first time (it was my first year out of high school) and I absolutely loved it. Now not only do I get an hour taken from me in July and August (this year), I get an hour less during May as well. Plus my parking goes up and so do ticket prices.

Good job CP, now I remember why I love you so much.

As far as the ticket price "increase"...is it really that much? It's two bucks...Cedar Point could have easily gone WDW style and raised it to 50 plus...

I think in the end Cedar Point is trying to find where middle ground is...for 2007 they're trying something different...if it works, great. If not, then theres the next season...business plans change with time, and they can't do it overnight.

What I don't agree with, is the fact that the Toledo Blade and several people here have suggested that Cedar Point did this all because of Maverick. So I guess the half a million or whatever improvements they did for 2006 were paid for with the non existent hike in ticket prices?? Yeah, Maverick costs more. But if that was the reason for the increase, then we should all be paying 60 bucks for admission right?

If Maverick is a reason, then why did the park cut hours?

You have a point there mk522. I was wondering the same thing. For Cedar Fair which operates 12 amusement parks now, it shouldn't be that hard to pay off Maverick. I'm sure they'll have that paid off by June.

I think part of it has to do with Staffing issues. They had trouble all over this year with staffing. Another reason could be the attendance numbers haven't been where they have wanted it to be the last 2 seasons, so they might be cutting back for that reason too. The addition of Maverick will definately bring the attendance numbers back up. A lot of people I've talked to are excited about it and are looking forward to 2007. So I know 2007 will be a great year.

I wanted to bring up another point that I didn't bring up last night. They may have changed the schedule to accomodate the employees. We noticed they made this change in 2006, so maybe they wanted to continue this for 2007. At night they have wanted to continue this so they have more time to clean up the park at night. Another thought is they should lower the prices of the food a little bit, that would bring more people into the park. I brought up staffing, I made a mistake with that. And lower the price of parking maybe to like $5.00 if they are to still keep charging for parking. I think that would help.